


with drops of jupiter in her hair

by thefirewildling



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-04-22 11:23:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4833521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefirewildling/pseuds/thefirewildling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His mom taught him the planets. She learned them on her own.</p><p>So when Stiles reaches Lydia for the first time on the second day of third grade, stating with the slightest blush across his cheeks and shining eyes that her hair is the color of Jupiter she flashes him a tootsie smile because she remembers the giant gaseous planet of the solar system featured on page 74 of her astronomy book.</p><p>She leaves running back to the swing set in shoes that are not meant for walking around in sandboxes and he wonders if Jupiter smells like strawberries too.</p><p>He hopes it does. When he grows up he wants to go there. Maybe he wants to hold Lydia Martin’s hand in Jupiter too.</p><p>(Or; 15 moments in Stiles and Lydia's life worth sharing)</p>
            </blockquote>





	with drops of jupiter in her hair

**Author's Note:**

> This story is for Maggie (maggsam) I'm sorry this took so long omg, but I got really into it! I really hope you like it!  
> Also a special thanks to anyone who endured my incessant talking on this because I got soooooo carried away, and to the best parabatai in the world who proof read this with me, you have a special place in heaven. :)  
> Happy reading!

His mom taught him the planets. She learned them on her own.

So when Stiles reaches Lydia for the first time on the second day of third grade, stating with the slightest blush across his cheeks and shining eyes that her hair is the color of Jupiter she flashes him a tootsie smile because she remembers the giant gaseous planet of the solar system featured on page 74 of her astronomy book.

She leaves running back to the swing set in shoes that are not meant for walking around in sandboxes and he wonders if Jupiter smells like strawberries too.

He hopes it does. When he grows up he wants to go there. Maybe he wants to hold Lydia Martin’s hand in Jupiter too.

 

* * *

 

 

If you’d ask him years later, he’d say that was the moment his ten year plan set motion.

(Scott says it was two days later, when he first announced he was going to marry her.)

It doesn’t matter.

It was in motion.

 

* * *

 

 

Sometimes he wishes he could tell her, but other times he wonders if he had the choice wouldn’t he rather live in pure bliss of innocence? Ignore the heavy burden of the supernatural havoc Beacon Hills abnormally has? Maybe. But he didn’t have the choice.

And he doesn’t know how to give it to her.

He sees her slowly losing her mind, and Jackson is more interested in someone else’s girlfriend than in his own. And as much as Stiles likes to try and be there for _the_ Lydia Martin, she doesn’t exactly flash him grins anymore. She outgrew their childhood friendship or whatever it ever was. She wanted popularity, recognition, success. He stood by his best friend, elevating his sarcasm to the point of not being sure if he’s kidding or not sometimes. She gets a boyfriend and the idea of love in her heart. He gets his broken.

She was still headstrong, she depicted indestructibility and empowerment as a whole. Fierce in a goddess like way Stiles failed to grasp but could never stop admiring.

But now she wore gloves to cover the cuts on her hands and ninety percent of the student community of Beacon Hills High thinks she lost it after running naked in the woods for two days straight.

Maybe it’s because he’s the only constant thing in her life that she holds out her hand for him to take and ice skate with her. Maybe it’s because he’s the only one who doesn’t look at her like she has _pathetic_ written across her forehead.

Maybe it’s just because he knows what her favorite chocolate is.

Either way she ends up crying in horror because she sees Peter Hale’s face on the ice, and Stiles sits with her outside until she calms down.  Scott and Allison walk home, they leave old Roscoe all for her.

Well, she prefers the Porsche, but Jackson doesn’t open the door for her.

“Please don’t take me home.” The words drop out of her mouth in between sobs.

He steers his gaze away from the road to flash her an uncertain look. “You sure? It’s getting late, your mom must be worried…”

“Please.” Her voice cracks under despair and he doesn’t need to be told twice, taking the next exit to the right, away from her house.

She holds her hands in her lap while the clashing wind from both windows makes the loose strands of her hair dance. “She doesn’t need to see me like this.” She says looking down.

Stiles’ hand reaches for hers but stops midway as if remembering it isn’t his to hold.

She wishes he had anyway, but she doesn’t move.

“Lydia…” his voice low. She wishes she could read his mind, wishes she could know if he’s succumbed to the collective thought and think she’s insane too.

(She couldn’t blame him if he did.)

“It’s the truth.” it’s just a whisper, just to herself, it never reaches his ears.

“Can I take you to my house?” he asks innocently but the surprised look she sends him in response makes him panic. “I mean, not to do anything, we wouldn’t do anything you didn’t want, umm maybe we could just sit on the couch for a while, or you in the couch and me on the floor if you’re not comfortable with that or…”

“Stiles.” His rambling brings a soft smile to her face, because how could someone be so hyperactive and so nervous at the same time, she doesn’t know. “Yeah, let’s go.”

He turns and gives her the most absurdly incredulous look and she wants to laugh out loud for the first time that night. “Really?”

She doesn’t know why the question makes her feel like she was just stabbed in the stomach. She’s drowning and doesn’t know how to swim. Everything is out of her reach, Lydia’s not in control anymore and she hates it. Maybe she is that much of a bitch he can’t believe she just agreed to be seen in public with him, let alone bring her to his house.

Whatever it is, she runs back to safe ground. She shrugs as an answer.

It doesn’t seem to bother him as he hums to the random song that plays quietly on the radio, so you can’t exactly say the drive is silent, but he glances at her with a concerned expression drawn all over his face every once in a while because god damn it they were just trying to be normal teenagers for a night and look what happened.

Stiles pulls over on his driveway and gets out to open the door for her.

“You don’t have to do that. I can take care of myself.” She breathes. Her throat is sore from the screaming. She wants him to stop, stop being so nice to her when she’s nothing but plain rude to him. She wants him to stop looking at her in awe when she does nothing but crack under her scars and scream herself awake.

His eyes are sad when he puts his hands up in surrender and opens the front door for them to come in.

It’s dark but they make a silent agreement not to flick any lights on. Stiles goes in the kitchen and leaves her on the living room as she takes in the pictures on the mantelpiece: there’s little him smiling next to his dad with a baseball bat, there’s him and Scott in the most embarrassing poses and sunglasses she’s ever seen. There’s a woman with her back turned to the camera because she’s watching a little boy playing with a dog.

“You remember the last time you were here?” his voice echoes off the empty house as she wanders through the pictures, through the memories that aren’t hers.

She turns to face him and he hands her a Star Wars mug filled with chamomile tea.

His eyes are like hopeful beacons of light in the dark room and it breaks her heart when she shakes her head.

(It breaks his too.)

Stiles offers her a small smile. “That’s okay. She liked meeting you.” He confesses in a low tone “Sorry about the mug.”

She wants to curl into a ball and cry. She wants everything to stop happening at once. She wants to start all over again. “I like it.” It’s a small confession, he deserves a lot better.

(She does remember: his mom made cookies and offered to give her a book about human anatomy she’d been eyeing on their shelf. Her eyes were whisky pools of kindness. So are his.)

 

* * *

 

 

He wonders if he may have to stretch the plan up to fifteen years.

It doesn’t matter.

(What’s another 7 years anyway?)

 

* * *

 

 

He’s the one who explains everything to her. Call it summer tutoring, call it whatever you want, since summer school doesn’t exactly teach you about werewolves and homicidal lizards. But Allison was all the way up in France for the summer and Jackson packs his bags for London and away from her life.

The fact that her IQ is over 170 speeds up the process and she figures Stiles is not much behind her. When she points it out for the first time, he admits it’s because his dad is a cop, his gut is instinctual. Whatever it is, it works.

If Harvard doesn’t work for her, maybe they should open a detective agency. _Welcome to the Martin-Stilinski company of private eyes, we take care of your little fuck ups and supernatural mayhem._

They meet almost every day and by this point she knows every corner of the Stilinski house almost as well as her own. She likes his bed, it’s softer than hers and she likes the feeling of his carpet under her bare feet.

She brings pages and pages of printed information in her Gucci bag and they sprawl it all over his bed and all over the floor and she thinks maybe this is her way of redeeming herself on the eyes of the universe after everything she’s done. Maybe the research is a small price to pay for her to have friends who accept her as who she really is, but then again she doesn't feel like she’s paying anything. She likes his bed and his carpet and the way he moves his hands when he’s excited.

“You’re a genius, Lyds!” he blurts out one day after she chemically explains why Kanima venom is able to paralyze their bodies. She knows it. But she also likes how Lyds became a thing just over a few months.

 _“I'm also pretty sure that I'm the only one who knows how smart you really are.”_ She’s done playing dumb.

She brings Quantum Physics books to his car. Stiles knows Astrophysics is her favorite, though.

Her hair is the color of Jupiter, but she’s the storm. Rattling for years.

 

* * *

 

 

Scott has a flame in his hand when Stiles steps on gasoline.

She gets so freaked out she could pull out every single hair on her head.

Instead, she throws herself at the fire to save his altruistic ass so she can kill him afterwards for giving her a violent heart condition.

Her outfit gets scorched, and her Prada stilettos don’t fit the way they used to anymore.

But for the first time in her life, she doesn’t mind.

 

* * *

 

_“I always thought we had this kind of connection. You know, unspoken of course.”_

Oops.

She never heard his words, he doesn’t remember ever saying them.

Fate does, though.

(She goes back to Deaton to ask him what _it_ means, but he just says she has to be there for him for a while.)

She is.

She tries.

But she screams when he stops being himself.

 

* * *

 

 

Lydia eventually realizes that the day they defeat the Nogitsune is just about a week away from the start of the Christmas break.

When they handed the triskelion box with the fly over to Deaton he’d told them it was a fair victory.

But none of them had really won, had they?

Maybe that’s why not one of them is seen at school during that last following week.

They don’t see each other either, not that much anyway. A part of her can’t grasp why since she needs them so much, but the other tells her her friends probably can’t stand to see her. _It’s her fault, her fault_. But she can’t muffle out the screams.

She wants _her_ back. She needs her so much.

At least Kira still calls, she still goes to school.

“Scott doesn’t answer his phone anymore.” She says sadly one day.

“Kira, he’s -”

“-mourning her, I know. I wish I’d known her better.” She finishes and Lydia’s never been more thankful she hadn’t said the name. She isn’t ready to hear it, not yet. “Were they like… really in love? Before?”

Lydia sighs, this has been bothering the Kitsune ever since she first saw the regretful stolen glances Scott and Allison seemed to share. “There was a time I would have bet my entire lifesavings that they would be married in 10 years’ time.” She pauses, smiling softly remembering all the conversations she and her best friend had over what she felt over Scott, and how, no matter how hard she tried, he never seemed to leave her broken heart. “Recently my money’s been on you though.” She can literally hear Kira smile on the other end of the line. “You just got to give him some time, she was… she brought out the best in all of us. Scott’s… numb with pain. Their love was so pure. And knowing him as I do, I’d say he’s probably blaming himself right now. Look, let him know you’re there, but let him be for a while, you know?”

“Yeah. Thank you. And I’m sorry to nag you in a time like this, I know this must be as hard for you as it is for Scott.” Then the question Lydia dreads so much this entire week. “How are you holding up?”

 _Terrified. Smashed by guilt_. _It was my fault, my fault. I can’t sleep. I felt Allison Argent’s death since the very first ray of dawn and I couldn’t do shit to stop it, I couldn’t tell anyone._

_I felt my best friend die with every living thing that I own. Every fucking atom._

“I survive. It’s what I do.” She says instead.

Kira pauses. “Lydia…”

“It’s hard, Kira. I can’t say it’s not. Sometimes I just feel so damn fucking tired I just want to close my eyes but all I see is her, all I feel is the scream climbing its way out.” She lets herself this, because she’s so fucking alone. But she clears her throat, trying to sound composed, because she’s Lydia Martin and she has fire in her hair. _In her heart_. “Have you heard from Stiles?

Of course she has to ask. It’s been the question at the back of her head for the past month, or even if she were to admit it to herself, for the past year. She has a feeling the trickster spirit chose him for the sole purpose that he is the mind of their operations. Without him they’d all been in the dark on what to do so they’d kill the Nogitsune but save the host. Save _him_.

“His dad comes to school to pick up homework for him and Scott, sometimes. He says hello but he looks like he hasn’t slept in a week either.”

During a month, you should sleep roughly 248 hours. Lydia has slept 172 by her calculations.

She wonders if Stiles slept even half of that.

Kira and her finish their conversation talking about how their Biology teacher has scheduled a test for the first week back and Lydia’s thankful they’re talking about things that are so casual and that bring the last remains of normality back into her life in a world that’s falling completely apart.

But she’s made up her mind, she’s going over to visit him.

She doesn’t brush her hair, and she doesn’t give much thought about what colors she’s wearing, but she’s definitely on heels because God damn it she needs the normality of it.

When she reaches his house the first thing she sees is his jeep parked on the doorway. She isn’t surprised, it’s the first time she left her house too. She knocks and when the Sheriff opens the door she can actually see relief on his face. “He’s upstairs, and umm… watch out for the glass. It’s been getting worse.”

She doesn’t ask but her face is a question mark that gets answered when she starts coming up the stairs and the mirror that hangs between the two floors is smashed to pieces and the shards crack under her shoes. Of course. _He stopped seeing himself in it._

She walks a little faster then.

She doesn’t knock, she just turns the nob in the way she’s seen him do so many times before: a bit to the left and then all to the right with a bit of a push, because else way the door cranks when it opens. He’s sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at the place where his, _their_ , conspiracy board lies. But there are no signs of colored thread where their theories collided. There’s blood on the bathroom door. He broke that mirror too.

“Stiles” the name comes out as a litany on the verge of despair as she kneels in front of him. His knuckles are bloody. She takes his hands anyway.

He looks up with red eyes and wet cheeks. “Lydia, I –”

“I know. Stiles, I know.” And she doesn’t know what she’s doing, but with him she never does. She acts by instinct and kisses his bloodied hands and cleans the tears that fall from his eyes. There are dark circles under his eyes and she knows they're weeks old and Lydia wishes she could wipe those away too.

“I’m so fucking sorry, Lyds.” It’s broken. Everything is broken. _They are_.

“It’s not your fault. It was never your fault.” She means it.

“I killed people, Lydia!” his hand covers his face, a broken sob escaping from his mouth. “I - I killed Allison.” There’s so much regret in his voice. “I hurt you.”

“It wasn’t you, damn it, Stiles.” She feels the tears prickle in her eyes too. “It wasn’t you.”

For a moment, his gaze meets hers again and it’s like the earth slipped because her eyes are so green and they're so anguished and sorrowful and Christ fucking damn it they’re 17 he doesn’t know how to fix it. He doesn’t know how to fix anything anymore.

So he looks down and let’s go of her hand because staring at her hopeless when he used to follow her through confidence and back is like losing faith in the universe. And being stuck with him when he’s not sure he’s willing to continue to live a life that’s not worth living anymore, it’s not what she deserves. Her of all people. “I don’t know who I am anymore, Lyds.”

It hurts her soul, it hurts her everything. So she takes his hand anyway and intertwines their fingers, because Lydia Martin is known for a lot of things: she has the best GPA Beacon Hills High School has ever seen in its fifty years of existence, she’s beyond beautiful and has hair worthy of committing murder for. That, and she doesn’t give up, much less when it comes to the people she loves. And here, in this room, in the soft carpet she likes, she’s not ready to let him go just yet. Not ever.

“You’re Maczysz Stilinski.” She says in a perfect accent. “You’re named after a grandfather you never met. You had a dog and you love the Mets. Sarcasm runs in your veins and you’re unable to talk without looking like a hyperactive spaz.” She pauses, holding his hand a little tighter. “You’re the ultimate epitome of Harry Potter because you have your mother’s eyes.”

And there it is, for the hundredth time in his life he’s left staring at her in awe because this girl in front of him literally took his breath away once, but figuratively she never stops. And she stands there, with his blood on her hands and tears in her eyes, while her hair is left in a mess of copper waves that fall over that green jacket he loves, and he knows actions speak louder than words so he just reaches for her and wraps his arms around her small figure.

Her hair doesn’t smell like strawberries anymore, it’s more herbal now, but he still wonders if Jupiter smells that good.

She sobs quietly against his plaid shirt. “I couldn’t swallow it, it just kept climbing my throat. I tried so hard, Stiles. I tried so hard not to scream.”

He just nods, because God he knows.

“I really tried.”

“Lyds, it wasn’t your fault.”

“She was there to save _me_.”  There it is.

Stiles pauses to look at her, and lets one of his hands caress her cheek. “Yeah, and we would have gone either way, I bet if Allison knew what was going to happen she would’ve still gone.”

She knows it’s true. Maybe that’s why the tears flow more easily.

He sobs openly too, and his hand plays with her hair at the back of her neck, taking lock into lock and twisting it around his fingers until she calms down.

Neither of them knows how long it’s been but the twilight is gone and outside his window the sky is dark blue and the moon is a soothing crescent.

He takes a step back from their embrace and reaches for her hand and for the grey blanket at the end of his bed. “Come.”

“Where are we going?”

He doesn’t answer but keeps the grasp on her hand guiding her over to the backdoor. The patio behind his house isn’t big, but the lawn is mowed and there are a few wild flowers growing near the fence. Lydia’s given up the heels by now, they hang seamlessly in the hand that isn’t intertwined with his.

He sets the blanket down on the grass and she finally realizes they’re stargazing and something tugs at her chest as she watches him closely in wonder.

He inspects her for a reaction. “I thought, since you like Astrophysics and all we could maybe search for constellations. I mean I don’t know them, but you’re a certified genius, but I guess the sky isn’t clear enough and maybe this was a stupid idea and you don’t like the stars and the planets like you used to as a kid but who am I kidding, after everything we've been through who knows what each of us even likes –” It’s a rambling she hasn’t heard in a month and it warms her heart.

“Stiles” She plants a hand on his chest and the first hint of a smile on her face. “I love it.”

And so they lay down, their arms touching slightly and take in the view. It isn’t like in the movies, the sky isn’t filled with millions upon millions of stars, you can’t see the entire Milky Way from his backyard, but it’s a clear winter night, and you get to see a couple of dozens scattered over the black.

She’s the one that breaks the silence.

“Some of those are already dead. Dead for years.”

He knows, but it doesn’t hurt any less to hear. “Do you think she’s there?”

She hesitates. “No.” Because after all, Lydia is a purely scientific woman.

“Me neither.” He pauses as he turns his face to look at her. “I like to pretend, though. And what’s science in a world where werewolves and Japanese trickster spirits exist? Why can’t she just be one of those, shining for the rest of eternity?” he says.

At night, his eyes look golden.

She doesn’t realize she’s weeping until she hears the lament that escapes her and her lips quiver.

He moves so his arm is around her and she rests her head on his shoulder. “What was your dog’s name?” The words fall in between sobs and she doesn’t know why she asks, but Stiles smiles for the first time that night.

“Whiskers.”

“You named your dog Whiskers?”

“Hey, what can I say? Breaking stereotypes since I was 4.”

His grin is contagious and she laughs shakily too.

“Talk Astronomy to me, Lyds” he laughs as he stares back at the night sky.

She does.

But she prefers the constellations he draws on the skin of her arm.

 

* * *

 

 

(Two weeks later she sees Malia kissing him passionately in the school hallway.)

(Here’s a truth and a lie, or a lie and a truth:

a) She’s done with teenage boys, anyway.

b) She goes home to her mom and rants about kind smiles and whisky eyes till 1AM.)

 

* * *

 

 

After many late night detective investigations of the supernatural, many sleepovers, many worries over one another’s safety, Stiles and Lydia were just playing with that thin line between that one friendship, and the other one caught on fire. Once they crossed it with a kiss, but that was another time, and something they never talked about. It had happened but the feelings were never mutual. When one was in, the other one was out.

But many times did it cross Lydia Martin’s mind on what would happen if they just preferred the flames over to melting ice. It was a recurrent thought, a wish, sometimes a dream.

Their timing is utter shit.

She thinks maybe not being able to be with him is some horrible punishment for her sins.

Maybe it’s karma for not truly noticing him sooner.

She blames the timing, though.

(It’s her fault.)

Timing.

(She had eight years.)

 

* * *

 

 

She realizes Parrish likes her.

She isn’t sure if she likes him too.

But the innocent flirting doesn’t harm anyone.

(He’s not him.)

 

* * *

 

 

When Parrish sees the blood in her ears he calls an ambulance, but she takes Stiles’ hand and they leave before it arrives, anyway.

He’s adamant to take her to the hospital, but the best he gets from her is a shrug, saying it’s not the first time it happens, sometimes her ears bleed out when she screams.

“Besides, we have no reasonable explanation. _Yes, hello, I’m a Banshee and I regularly blow off my eardrums?_ They would send me to Eichen, Stiles.” The mention sends shivers down both their spines. “You know Meredith didn’t mean it.”

“Random ear bleeding? Much more plausible, a lot less paperwork, I’m sure they would buy it.” he suggests while giving a quick concerned glace at her ears before flashing his eyes back to the road, his long soft fingers tapping the steering wheel.

“Stiles.”

“What? Oh c’mon at least let me take you to Melissa, she’ll know what to do!” he’s exasperated with her at this point, but what’s new.

“I can take care of myself, you know.” The words are an echo from another time, another place. The same crappy blue jeep and his same erratic driving. It’s a different answer.

He sighs, and pulls the car over to the side of the road. “I know.” He reaches the glove compartment and takes out a piece of cloth and a bottle of water. “Believe me, I know. You’re probably the fiercest woman I’ve ever met. Hell, you’re the fiercest person I’ve ever met.” He wets the fabric and starts cleaning the blood at the side of her face. His hands are soft and steady against her chin and the touch feels electric. “But the thing is, Lyds, you don’t have to. You have people who care about you more than anything. You have me.”

She smiles softly and pretends her heart didn’t just do a gymnastics routine.

“Thank you” she says and she means it more than she ever did. Because after all these years he’s still the only constant thing in her life. “Now what do you think? Should I start using these as new sideburns? Set a new trend?”

It’s her failed attempt to try and lighten the mood because she feels mangled when he says things like these to her.

Not when he isn’t hers.

His lean hands stroke her cheek lightly while he inspects the wound. She tries not to look at him too much, because these days it just feels like what she would imagine walking through fire must feel like: exhilarating, but excruciatingly painful, and when you’re done you have scorched members and your heart will never handle another experience like that ever again. But he has seven moles on his face. It’s not like she counted anyway.

“You always look beautiful, Lyds.”

Karma is a bitch.

 

* * *

 

 

He could never forget the day Scott told him everything he wanted to tell Allison right before she started turning cold in his arms, when all words failed him.

Stiles froze on a doorway when he saw Lydia lying on the floor in a pool of her own blood.

His hands reach for something to hold and find the door. He’s gonna fall, the Earth slipped. She squeezes her eyes in agony and he doesn’t think he can handle it.

Lydia.

His Lydia.

_“I wanted to smell her hair without smelling all the blood over us.” Scott admits with red eyes sitting on the floor of his bedroom._

There’s so much blood around her. Kira’s hands on her wound are entirely stained red. He doesn’t think he can breathe.

She’s fighting for her life, she’s struggling to keep afloat, to keep awake.

Figures past fast next to him. Theo beats him to a tourniquet.

_“I wanted to hear her keep talking, she never finished her sentence. She was trying to save us all with her last breaths.”_

His strong Lydia, who forces a smiles when she sees the first signs of a panic attack splattered all over his face.

_“I wanted to feel her warm hand in mine one more time. I wanted to get to see what shape her smiles were again.” It’s an outburst. It’s lethal._

His selfless Lydia who asked him to go and save people’s lives while she laid there almost losing her own.

Her words are hoarse. “Tracy. Stiles, I’m fine.” There’s another smile, or a grimace, either way his chest hurts when he sees it and everything is in slow motion. “Help Tracy.”

Scott’s voice echoes in the background calling for him. It’s a lost sound, like it’s underwater.

_“I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to hear her heart beat faster.”_

He turns back to her, because there’s a thread tying their lives together. An anchor. And if she sinks, he goes under too. Lydia smiles again when gold meets green. “Go.”

_“I wanted her to stop turning cold.”_

He goes.

_“I wanted to…” he sighs. “I wanted to say it back, I never got to say it back”_

_“Scott…”_

_“I loved her. It wasn’t enough.”_

Stiles froze on a doorway.

 

* * *

 

 

“Please tell me you didn’t sleep at the hospital again.” He hears, her voice is low.

He gets up from the chair at the end of her room to sit next to her on the edge of the bed. “No, I’ve slept in the jeep this time. Much more comfortable. 9 out of 10 would definitely recommend.” He admits and Lydia just rolls her eyes because she seriously has lost track at how many times they’ve visited each other at the hospital.

“Is Tracy okay?” She asks, but the way he stares at his trembling hands speaks before he ever could.

“Kira cut out her tail trying to protect you. When Malia got there she was bleeding silver.”

“Silver?”

“Silver.” He confirms. “How are you holding up? I had to bribe Melissa to get in here by the way, just so you know.”

“Is she coming to kick you out?” she asks with a smile dancing on her lips. He stares at her in concern until she sighs and answers. “I’m fine, Stiles. Numb from the pain killers.”

He nods but the unease doesn’t leave his face. “I brought you some Jello.” He says, handing her the little yellow container.

Her eyes widen and she takes it from his hands with amazing speed. “I’m starving.”

“You know, our parents were going on a date.” He states as he watches her devour her food.

“I know. Thank God I almost died in the middle of it.”

He can’t help but give her his first real laugh of the night.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s not blue old Roscoe that picks her up. He didn’t make it that far to their senior prom. Instead he takes the new Toyota he’s been trying to get the hang on, but he misses his shift box and he keeps reaching for the driving stick. Her mom takes their picture at the bottom of the stairs. They pretend they're normal teenagers and smile for it.

This year she wears dark blue. Long and silky. It’s a contrast between the last time they were here and what they grew up to be. Dark blue is melancholic. It’s hopeful. White was innocent.

It got stained with blood.

He fits better into his suit too and he got her a corsage that matches the color of her eyes, and for the first time in her life his horrible color coordination doesn’t bother her.

Malia and his relationship had fallen apart a month ago because when she found out he’d killed Donovan, she embraced the blood on his hands. She had plenty too.

But he didn't want to be with someone who accepted the murderer he was with open and loving arms just at the excuse that she too had done things she wasn't proud of. 

So when he stumbled to Lydia’s house after they rescued her from Eichen House and half drunkenly told her about the life he took, she spent the entire night explaining there was no blood to wipe clean on his hands. _It was self-defense, Stiles. He was going to kill you and your dad._

She spine braids her hair. He plays with it while they sway to slow songs, or any other song really, it doesn’t affect them.

“Do you remember – ” He whispers in her ear (Scott and Kira giggle from afar), because it’s too personal to scream over the music. She doesn’t know the song, anyway, but her arms are still around his neck and her head is on his shoulder. “ – when we first met?”

She nods with a smile. “You told me my hair was pretty.”

“No, no. I told you your hair was out of this world. I had some game when I was eight.” He grins and it reaches his eyes.

“You still do, Stilinski. You told me I was like Jupiter.”

“Well I was wrong.” He says and he takes a step back but keeps his grasp on her waist.

“You were?”

“Yeah. Because you're a fucking galaxy, Lydia Martin. Full of stars and planets, and scars and black holes, but most of all, filled with beautiful and awe rendering things.”

It isn’t the first time she’s left speechless by Stiles Stilinski, but every single time he manages to exceed himself. She looks up to meet his hopeful expression and the bright lights reflected on his eyes. “You know what, Stiles? So are you.”

And then Lydia Martin doesn’t know what she’s doing. She acts by instinct rather than logic because the mere presence of him makes her incapable of thinking straight. Specially now, after all they’ve been through. But she’s kissing him, and their lips move against each other in tender and slow movements. They haven’t kissed each other in months, not after that time in the locker room where desperation clung to them both like a second skin, but yet it still feels as if the universe is giving them a thumbs up after they finally realize they had been ignoring fate for years.

They’re Stiles Stilinski and Lydia Martin, future owners of a detective agency. She stands in the middle of Beacon Hills High in a blue gown and him in a black suit.

They’re endless galaxies and she thinks maybe it wouldn't be so bad if they collided, too.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope that wasn't too horrible. Feedback is always lovely :)  
> I'm lydiasliles on tumblr <3


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